Tibet student protester speaks out

Beijing-based Tibetan student tells of hopes and fears in wake of crackdown.

20 Mar 2008 02:02 GMT

Images of a protest vigil by Tibetan students in Beijing have been posted on the internet

Around 100 Tibetan students in Beijing have taken part in a candlelit vigil in a rare public display of protest in the Chinese capital.

The students from Beijing's CentralUniversity for Nationalities, prayed for three hours on Monday evening for Tibetans they say were killed in a Chinese crackdown.

"They told us it would be bad for us if we did this again"

Dolme, Tibetan student

Chinese authorities have taken a firm line on student activism since the 1989 Tiananmen Square demonstrations and heavy-handed police and security prevented foreign journalists from witnessing the vigil.

Nonetheless video footage of the event has leaked out of a China and a few blurred images have been posted on the internet by supporters.

Al Jazeera spoke to one of the protesters, 23-year old Dolme, an ethnic Tibetan from Sichuan province.

Her name has been changed to protect her identity

"We wanted to express our sympathy with our people in Tibet and pray for all our people who have been killed," says Dolme, adding that she and many others in the sit-down had wept while they prayed.

"We feel so very sad because we are so helpless. They have killed monks and common people - you must know this."

Chinese security forces have imposed a lockdown on Tibet [Reuters]

We are in a small café speaking in hushed tones. As she talks her friends throw nervous glances behind us at other customers, worried they will overhear.

She says she doesn't know how many have died but from communications she is receiving she thinks it is a lot more than the official count of 13 and even more than the 100 claimed by exiled Tibetan groups.

With Tibet and much of the surrounding area under security lockdown, it has become almost impossible for journalists to verify the conflicting claims.

Dolme says she and her classmates at the university have been talking by phone to friends and relatives in Tibetan areas who have passed on reports of Chinese police gunning down ethnic Tibetans in the streets.

People have also told her of security forces holding monks under house arrest in their monasteries, cutting off their electricity and water supply.

A friend of her family, a man her father's age who was on pilgrimage to Lhasa, is the only person she knows personally who has died, Dolme says, but she is not sure how he was killed.

"It is difficult to know exactly what is happening when we are here in Beijing," she says.

China has locked down the country's Tibetan areas, going as far as blockading ethnic districts of Sichuan's capital Chengdu after riots which followed days of peaceful protests by monks in Lhasa.

Exile groups are calling it a spontaneous eruption of anger and resentment at decades of oppressive Chinese rule, while Beijing is accusing the Dalai Lama of instigating the violence – allegations the exiled spiritual leader denies.